Lenovo IdeaPad Y480 now available for pre-order

The 14-inch performance notebook now expected to carry Ivy Bridge and an Nvidia GeForce GT 6xxM GPU as standard

by Allen Ngo, 2012/03/10

Lenovo’s successor to the IdeaPad Y470 can now be pre-ordered from Amazon, at least in the U.S.

The IdeaPad Y480 was announced earlier this year alongside the larger 15.6-inch IdeaPad Y580 and a host of other Lenovo offerings. The upcoming Y480, however, should be one of the first batch of Lenovo notebooks to be available with Intel’s third generation of Core ix CPUs. According to the Amazon listing, the 14-incher will be shipping with a quad-core Core i7-3610QM Ivy Bridge CPU and even a discrete Nvidia GeForce GT 630M with 8GB system RAM and 2x 1.5W JBL speakers.

The remaining specs are otherwise more or less mediocre, such as the 2x USB 2.0 ports and VGA-out. The notebook may also be quite hefty at 1.3-inches (3.3cm) thick and 4.85 pounds (2.20kg) with a listed battery life of only up to 4 hours. Whether or not the notebook will include additional connectivity options or battery options is still unknown.

Official ship dates for the IdeaPad Y480 have yet to be announced, but we expect the notebook to come around soon after the arrival of Ivy Bridge in April or May at the earliest. The pre-configured Amazon model is currently retailing for $999.